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October 31, 2015

Hello!
Sorry I haven’t written in awhile, blog. I’ve been writing other things. Novels and such.

I’ve also been writing Horror Game Essays for On the Stick!
You remember how I’ve always done that, right? This year was no exception!

Anyway, I just wanted to put them all here, to have them all in one place, in case you missed some of them. I wrote a lot of nice things, I think!

First off, I wrote about Danganronpa 2, and how the game’s use of gamification in all of its interactions helps to create the proper sense of both closeness and distance for it to really make you care about everyone.

I wrote an article about Ultra Despair Girls, and how it works to turn a fairly one-note character of questionable stereotypes into a well-rounded character you care a whole lot for.

I wrote a very difficult and personal essay about UNDERTALE, specifically Toriel, and why the game reflected so heavily on some of the hardships in my life. This contains spoilers for a lot of the game, though I don’t get into a lot of specifics.

I wrote about the recent Visual Novel Amnesia: Memories, specifically one of the routes, Diamond World, and it’s fairly upsetting portrayal of Big/little, Dom/sub dynamics.

I wrote about Monsterhearts, a tabletop roleplaying game I really, really, really like. It captures that teenager feeling so well, and it plays with themes anyone can pick up, and I tried to explain why.

Finally, I wrote about Hylics, and why a game about face melting and weird creatures is really all about being able to relax.

Phew, that’s a lot of stuff to read, huh? If you go back and take a look at any of it, I hope you like it. It was fun, as always, to pretend to be a games writer for a month! You should also check out everyone else’s videos and essays and whatnot! Tons of cool stuff on there.
Anyway, back to all my usual writing. Short Stories and Novels! Huzzah!
Happy Halloween!

February 14, 2015

Happy Valentine’s Day! Perhaps you’d like a book about romances and relationships. It’s been a long time coming. There were a lot of setbacks, mostly emotional, but it’s done, and here it is.

Welcome to The Showroom.

The Showroom was my first long-length writing project. It started from nothing. I was trying to write something sexy and throwaway and it quickly became a completely different beast that was still obsessed with sex and romance, but was something more, in my opinion. It became this study on relationships, and how we connect to and interact with people. It became an exploration on how we create friendships, boyfriends, girlfriends, and everything in between. It became this look at a city, and the connections that link people, and The Showroom, which threw them all into turmoil. It’s a collection of short stories (well, one of them is more like a novella) that builds a world by slowly pulling back curtains and illuminating corners.

Perhaps that’s a little too dramatic. But that’s what The Showroom is about, to me. I hope you see something in it like that. The book has some sex scenes, but not as many as you’d expect. Still, it’s dealing with mature stuff, so keep that in mind.

You can buy The Showroom here. It’s $5. And if you’re reading this quickly, I put my novella project, A Shuffled Pack, out there for a dollar on sale starting Monday. If you do take a look at these, I hope you enjoy them, and let me know what you think. It would also be useful if you’d review them on Amazon. Then more random people might give them a chance.

April 21, 2014

Last September or October or so, my friend Andy suggested a bunch of us on a forum write a book of horror short stories, just for fun. Now, I knew and still know very little about horror, but I wanted to join in. It sounded fun. I had no idea what to write for horror, however. I wrote a weird story about depression. It’s okay, for what it is, though not horrific or anything. Then, in a conversation, I basically got dared to write a furry horror story. So I did. And I was really happy with it. And people seemed to like it, even non-furries, who said things like “Wow, I think I understand the furry thing now” which is a weird thing to hear, I guess, especially considering it was kind of a failing and non-functioning version of it.

I hadn’t written anything in basically forever. But it felt really good to write that story, and I took some time to analyze why. I had picked reading back up recently, as a sort of calming focus to keep me from panicking. I hadn’t read anything in years, really. Reading still felt like work from my school days. But suddenly, I started reading fun things, and having a good time, and I read tons of books. I realized, while I was writing that weird furry horror story, that the same thing was true for my writing. Writing felt like work: I was putting a huge pressure on myself to write High Art, something with tons of depth. But was that what I was reading? No. Occasionally, perhaps, but mostly I was reading fun things, silly things, even sometimes sexy things. I was just reading what I wanted to read. Why couldn’t I just write what I wanted to write?

So that’s exactly what I’ve done. Since then I’ve written a lot of things. Sexy stories, novellas, short stories, and even a novel. I keep plugging away at things, editing, and modifying, but basically, I keep writing. I write what I want to see. It’s been a lot of fun.

One of my first complete successes was a story about a detective who was a dog having issues with being queer and trying to save her family. I liked it. Could I see flaws in it? Maybe. But I fiddled with it, and fiddled with it, until I liked it. And then it sat there, waiting for me to have the courage to do something with it.

I finally found the courage.

(Look at that awesome cover art that my friend ikks did for me! Oh man!)

A Shuffled Pack is not High Art. It’s probably not going to make you question your life or anything. But it was a blast to write, and, I hope, a blast to read. It’s got romance, some guns are shot, and there is probably more talk about heat cycles than there should be. But it’s my little novella, and I’m glad I did something with it, even if it only sells four copies or something. At least I put myself out there.

It takes a weird kind of courage to assume the ridiculous shit you like, or worse, make, is something someone else will care about. I’m glad I found that courage, even if everyone hates it. I really am glad.

If you want to buy A Shuffled Pack, you can click here. Thank you for your time.

October 26, 2013

So awhile back, Andy had this hi-larious crazy idea: what if we all put together a horror anthology and sold it on the Kindle store? What a wacky thought!

Anyway, uh, then we did it, and it’s awesome. Click here and buy it. This is a legit book of like 150 pages. There are a lot of random Kindle things up there that are like 12 pages long for 3 bucks? This is 12 short stories, man. This is serious! It’s a book!

I only wrote one of the stories, but I think it turned out pretty well, given I know basically 0 about horror and it’s not really a thing I ever indulge in. I decided to write about the most horrific thing ever: sex and relationships. To be more specific, furry sex and relationships. So that’s terrifying, clearly! But my story is only one of them in there. It’s all pretty good stuff. Check it out.

The word on the street is that we’re going to try to do these on a regular basis with different themes, and just have fun. I certainly hope so. This was a great thing to do, though I admit I didn’t put in as much work as I hoped. I had wanted to edit more, but got bogged down with stress and grading and blah. Andy is the real hero here! That’s why he gets the editor credit, I suppose! Heh.

Anyway, that’s a thing, if you want to check it out. We’d all appreciate it. I have more self-promotion stuff I need to put up here, so look out for me bragging more soon. Later!

July 7, 2013

I did another game jam. This one, of course, is Molyjam 2013. Faced with amazing inspiration from Peter Molyneux, I did the only obvious thing. I made a cooking simulator. You can play it here. The official Molyjam page for it is here. I hope you find it interesting, at the very least.

Whoo, I made another stupid game! And this one has an inventory system, which I’m kind of proud of, even though I’m sure it’s really awfully put together!

April 6, 2013

I heard about a game jam going on today. I think it used to be called the Gayme jam, but now it’s like the QUILT Jam or something? Anyway, I had an idea to participate, but I have an awesome wedding to go to today (Congrats, Brad, by the way!). So I decided to make it yesterday. It all came together, and now it’s done, and then I realized it didn’t really fit the jam’s theme anyway.

But I made something. And that’s significant. I dunno, I don’t make things enough anymore. I’m proud of it, in my dumb little way.

The game is here. It’s called The Ceiling. It’s not a platformer where a ceiling is separated from its walls and must jump through 10 stages in order to get them back, though that would have been cool. It’s kinda personal, but that’s the point. I hope you enjoy it, or at least get something out of it, if you try to play it. And please, let me know what you think if you do.

April 3, 2013

Oh, hey, look! Over at Onthestick.com! It’s a recording involving my voice! They let me on the podcast again to talk about Etrian Odyssey IV, DmC Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, music that only I like, and more! If you don’t hate listening to me, and if you actually are seeing this post on this website, you probably don’t, then you should go listen to it here!

October 18, 2012

Oh, yesterday, my final article went up on On The Stick. It’s about Corpse Party, and it’s right here. I ended up writing articles about a lot of different things, but this is the one I originally wanted to do. Few games have creeped me out like this game, and I just doubted that many people heard of it. So I thought maybe I’d spread the word just a tiny bit. Do my part. Etc.

That’s it from me for this year’s 31 More Days of Horror Games! I’m sure I’ll help out with whatever else they do next year, but seriously, be sure to finish reading all the rest of the articles. They’re all PRETTY SWEET!

October 16, 2012

Hello! I wrote another thing! Can you believe this shit? Me writing a thing? I mean, seriously. This one is about a My Little Pony fan horror game. I couldn’t resist a little trolling, so to speak, but for some reason they actually let me do it. So, uh, you know. Take a look at it here.

One more article and then all my articles are done! Whew! How they were set in the timeline just made them all kind of naturally bunch up, I suppose. Anyway, one last one tomorrow, and it’s kind of the one I feel the most like… well, it’s the game I really want people to know about and try that they may not have tried, I’ll say that. See you tomorrow for another one of these silly little posts reminding you about it!

October 15, 2012

Hey, look, more self promotion! And there’s going to be more for like two more days, so, you know, sorry about that. Anyway, that podcast I recorded with the On The Stick guys is up, and over here. I’d hope you’d be listening to it anyway, because I’d hope you’re a fan of their podcast. I’m always really entertained by it when I listen, and I’m lucky enough to know all of them, you know?

I listened to some of it so far, and my voice wasn’t TOO terrible. I can almost listen to it now. Not that I sound great. But that’s really more my holdup. I’m sure you’ll not have any problems with it. Or if you do, tell me so I can despair about it for weeks or whatever. Heh.

In any case, I hope you enjoy. Tell me what you think, sarcasm about my voice aside! And hey, two more articles coming from me in the next two days. So, uh, look forward to two more posts like this. I hope this glut of content from me is a boon and not just something weird. Yep!